The Operative (22 page)

Two years after leaving Kosovo, Cano, or Vleshek, was a legal resident in the US and as long as he remained gainfully employed as a ‘Specialist Interpreter for Albanian/American Businesses Opportunities’ he could stay in the country indefinitely. Within three months Cano married an American woman whom he met only once and two years later, a year before the woman met with a fatal car accident while driving under the influence of alcohol, he received his Green Card along with an application form with which to apply for full citizenship after three more years of residence.

Cano stared at Stratton as the memory of the day when he’d been defiled back in Kosovo lingered. He hoped that such a bizarre coincidence was possible and that this was one of the men who’d humiliated him, though as far as his memory served there was no resemblance. The man was old enough to have been one of the SAS men and certainly looked as if he could once have been a soldier. But even Cano was aware that he was clutching wildly at straws. It was of no real consequence anyway since Cano didn’t need an excuse to be brutal and the man was, after all, English.

‘You ever been to the Balkans?’ Cano asked anyway.

‘Where?’ Stratton answered.

Cano gave it up. ‘What are you doing here?’ he asked, sitting back.

‘I’m on holiday.’

Cano took a cigarette packet from his pocket, removed one and offered the pack to Stratton.

‘No, thanks.’

Cano put the cigarette in his mouth and the packet back in his pocket. ‘Why’d you come to LA for a holiday?’

‘I’ve never been here before.’

Cano lit his cigarette with a gold lighter and blew a long line of smoke into the passenger cabin.

‘You here alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘You always go on holiday alone?’

‘Sometimes,’ Stratton said, glancing at Klodi and the lump in his jacket that revealed where his pistol was.

‘You a fag?’

‘You got something against gays?’

Cano shrugged. ‘I just wondered. There’s a lot of fags in this city. A single man comes here on holiday, you gotta figure, the guy must be a fag.’

If Cano was trying to wind Stratton up he obviously had little experience of the English who were the wind-up masters of the world. ‘Well, don’t knock it unless you’ve tried it is what I always say.’

Cano looked for an insult in Stratton’s expression but could not see one. ‘What’s your name?’ he asked as he drew on the cigarette.

‘John Stratton.’

‘You can prove that? You got ID?’

‘Why do I need ID? You want to tell me what this is about?’

‘You’re not in a position to demand anything,’ Cano said. ‘Show me some ID.’

Stratton was waiting for a moment that he could use to his advantage. What that might mean he had no idea and he would only know when the moment presented itself. Until then he would play along. As he
reached into his shirt’s breast pocket Klodi moved surprisingly fast for a fat man, grabbed his hand and reached into the pocket. He pulled out a passport and handed it to Cano.

Cano opened it, compared the photo to Stratton in the flesh, then flicked through the pages. ‘You don’t travel too much.’

‘That’s a new passport,’ Stratton told him. He’d been through more than a dozen since working for the intelligence services.

Cano kept hold of the passport and stared intently at Stratton once more. ‘What do you do for work?’

‘I’m a diver.’

‘See, Klodi?’ Cano sneered, looking at his thug. ‘Aren’t divers all gay?’

Klodi, who looked as if he had the IQ of a fish, nodded in solemn agreement.

‘A deep-sea diver,’ Stratton emphasised. ‘Oil platforms.’

Cano was uninterested. ‘What were you doing at the DA’s office?’

‘I was curious about maybe getting a job here and I wanted to see what I had to do to get a visa.’

‘That’s Immigration, not the DA’s office.’

‘That right? Maybe you could give me some advice.’

Cano did not appreciate Stratton’s attitude: his dislike for the Englishman was increasing by the second. He took a puff of his cigarette, put it out in the ashtray on the drinks cabinet and removed a large, shiny bone-handled knife from a sheath inside his jacket.

Stratton’s gaze flicked to the blade. He watched as Cano put the tip on the carpeted floor and, balancing the knife in the vertical, spun it while he thought.

Stratton could feel the seconds ticking closer to the moment when he would have to do something. His heart was starting to beat a little faster and his breathing grew shallower as his body began to pump adrenalin through him in preparation for something that he knew he had to do. Precisely what and how, though,
he could not decide since the choices were so limited. It was his habit from years as an undercover operative, where overreaction was ill-advised, to wait for the enemy’s move that signalled their intent and then initiate his own – but this was fast becoming a case for him to act first. His body tensed as his senses screamed a warning that the two villains were about to do something.

‘You ever had a knife shoved up your ass?’ Cano asked, his stare following the edge of the blade.

Stratton sprang forward, slamming Klodi in the throat with the side of his hand while at the same time kicking the knife out of Cano’s grip. As Cano made a grab for him Stratton brought his elbow across, catching him in the side of the head. Klodi quickly recovered and rolled his weight forward to grab Stratton and take a swing at him. The heavy blow caught Stratton in the gut while Cano followed it with a punch to his face. As Klodi laid into Stratton Cano scrambled for the knife. Stratton twisted to avoid a savage haymaker and Klodi’s powerful fist plunged into the drinks cabinet, shattering bottles and glasses.

The front passenger looked back to see the fracas as did the driver who received a warning slap from the passenger to keep his eyes on the road. The glass partition opened and the passenger got onto his knees and leaned in through the narrow opening in an attempt to get involved. But he was too big to squeeze in very far and Stratton stayed just out of his reach.

Stratton made a lunge for Cano who was reaching for the knife, the single most dangerous item in the fight. He put his weight onto the man’s back while grabbing the door handle and pushing it open against the wind. The limousine was passing through Venice on the beach road, shops and buildings on either side, the sidewalks crowded with pedestrians.

Meanwhile, Klodi grabbed Stratton’s hair from behind in an effort to yank him back as Stratton took hold of Cano’s arm above the hand that now held the knife. Stratton jabbed his elbow
back, catching Klodi in the jaw and almost breaking it. But this gave Cano the opportunity to take a firmer hold of the knife. As Stratton lunged forward once again and threw Cano back onto the seat the front passenger was able to land a blow on Stratton’s head. Still unsatisfied with his contribution to the fight he reached into his jacket and pulled out his pistol.

The driver glanced back for a few seconds. When he looked forward again the vehicle in front had stopped at the end of a line of cars halted by a traffic light. He slammed on the brakes, sending the passenger backwards into the dash, winding him. At the same time his head thumped heavily against the windscreen, causing him to drop his pistol.

Blood trickled down Stratton’s face into one of his eyes from a cut on his head. But things were far too serious now for him to care about it. As the limous ine pulled away with the flow of traffic Klodi grabbed Stratton from behind and flung him to the floor against the open door. Cano stabbed down at him with the knife but Stratton managed to twist himself around and grab the hand that held it. Cano straightened his arms and pushed down in an effort to shove the tip of the blade into Stratton’s chest as his head and shoulders were forced outside, the door pressing against him – if it hit anything he would be crushed.

The driver saw the open door in his wing mirror and, unable to tell who was actually hanging out of it, did his best to prevent it hitting anything, which meant moving into the centre of the road and forcing oncoming vehicles to swerve out of his way. The passenger had managed to get back onto his seat, his back aching and head thumping. He searched the floor for his gun.

Klodi leaned past his boss to punch Stratton as best he could in the crowded doorway while Cano pushed the knife closer to Stratton’s chest. Stratton was in a precarious position and needed a dramatic change of tactic, otherwise he’d be lost. Instead of trying to force Cano back he suddenly pulled him down onto
him while guiding the knife over and past himself. The action was successful to a degree, bringing Cano half way out of the door. In a sudden panic-induced effort not to fall out Cano made a grab for the door frame, which resulted in the knife dropping from his hand and bouncing out of the vehicle to clatter along the street.

Stratton’s major concern now was not to lose his head, literally, as it moved further out of the car door. But then it occurred to Stratton that it was the only direction to go and so he yanked even harder while twisting his body. Both men, now facing each other, hit the road with their shoulders. Klodi immediately grabbed his boss in an effort to stop him falling out and they drove on down the road through the crowded street, attracting the attention of everyone they passed.

The thugs in the trailing white sedan had seen the door open from the start but were unable to determine what – apart from an obvious struggle – was going on. When the limousine had paused because of the traffic lights one of them had started to climb out but had quickly jumped back in when the limo pulled away again. When they realised that it was the Englishman hanging out of the doorway they moved closer and directly behind, ready to run him over if he was ejected. But then Cano suddenly joined him.

Stratton’s leather jacket was wearing out fast at the shoulder as he bounced along and kicked out violently to release his feet, one of which was trapped under Klodi’s bulk. He placed his free foot against Klodi’s face and, with a supreme effort, pushed back with all his strength. He flew out of the limousine and bounced and rolled to the kerb where the following sedan swerved in an effort to run him over, missing him by inches.

It was not yet over for Cano who was doing all he could to stop himself from following Stratton. Then Klodi recovered in time to plant a hand on the door frame and yank his boss inside,
throwing him hard against the opposite door and almost knocking him senseless. It was at that moment that the limousine driver swerved to avoid an oncoming lorry and the open door hit the back of a parked car, slamming it shut with such force that it closed savagely on Klodi’s fingers. Whereupon Klodi let out a howl that could be heard for a considerable distance despite being muffled inside the vehicle.

‘Stop!’ Cano yelled at the driver above the screaming.

The limousine braked instantly, swerving slightly as it screeched to a halt. Cano pushed on the door to try and open it, not to release his employee but in a manic effort to get outside and pursue Stratton. He quickly gave up, found the button for the sunroof and pushed on it violently as if the added force might speed up the electric motor.

The sedan came to a stop behind the limo and the men peeled from it as Cano clambered out onto the limo roof, dropped down onto the boot and ran up the street.

Cano, along with his men, reached the place where Stratton had ejected. They searched between the parked cars and inside shops all the way back to the corner of the intersection that they had driven through. The right turn entered a quiet residential area and the left was a broad, dead-end street leading to the beach with a bustling market at the end packed with small stalls and hundreds of shoppers.

‘Shall we go look for him?’ one of Cano’s men asked.

Cano ignored him as he walked out into the street to get a better look. Beyond the market was a line of tall palm trees marking the start of the beach. But there was no sign of the Englishman. Cano then looked down at his feet to see his knife. He picked it up, inspected the blade and then noticed the blood trickling from a large graze on his hand. It began to sting as if seeing it had activated the pain. But Cano ignored it as he slid the knife back into its sheath under his jacket and inspected his
shoulder where the jacket was ripped away to expose more bleeding flesh. Anger flashed through his heart at the thought of the man escaping him and he vowed to kill him if he ever saw him again. Only twice in his adult life had he received any kind of a beating that he had not avenged and both had been from an Englishman.

Cano walked back to the limousine, followed by his men, to find the driver and passenger struggling to pull open the door. Klodi was in tears on the other side of it.

‘It won’t budge,’ the passenger said, giving up. ‘It’s stuck real good.’

They all looked to see four swollen fingers sticking out from the door seam.

‘That’s gotta hurt,’ one of the thugs said with understated sincerity.

‘Tell him to shut up,’ Cano said coldly as he walked to the white sedan, leaving the others to figure out how to free their colleague.

Stratton stood in the bath under the gushing shower rose, hands planted in front of him against the white-tiled wall. The warm water running down his body turned red as it streamed from his feet and down the plughole.